We’re Proud to Announce Our Plastic-neutral Certification

We’re super excited to share the fact that My Furbaby is New Zealand's first Plastic Neutral company to offset all of our plastic packaging with RePurpose Global. We have been plastic-neutral since May 2020, and, at the time of writing, we’ve already recovered almost 1000 kilos of plastic waste from oceans and landfills through our partnership with rePurpose Global.

Right now, it’s pretty much impossible to do completely plastic-free packaging in pet food, so we're reducing as much plastic as we can in everything we do, and offsetting the rest. Read on to learn more about what being plastic-neutral means, and how it works.  

What Does It Mean That My Furbaby Is Plastic Neutral?

By going Plastic Neutral with rePurpose Global, Feed My Furbaby contributes a % of each product we sell to finance the removal of the same amount of plastic waste from nature that we use in our packaging. What it means for us - is that where we don’t have direct control over the end of life, we are taking additional responsibility to offset the same amount of plastic.

We have designed out as much plastic from our packaging and process as we can; the only plastic we send out our doors (to our customers) is either (reduced weight) soft plastic recyclable, or home compostable. But because we can’t directly control how our customers manage the end of our packaging life cycle, we offset enough plastic to allow for all of this packaging. Given we generally have an environmentally conscious customer - any additional recycling in the home is an additional benefit to the planet (and technically puts us into plastic-positive territory!)

Plastic is an incredibly durable and lightweight material that guarantees product quality, slashes food waste (as a result of the improved shelf life), and reduces the carbon footprint in transportation compared to glass or metal. However, we recognise that we as a world have utterly mismanaged the plastic we do use, and that’s why we decided to take action - we wanted to make a difference in the pet food industry. 

The Plastic Neutral commitment fits into our broader plastic waste action strategy that includes a reduction in soft plastic use in the future. 

Through this partnership with rePurpose Global, we are supporting rePurpose Impact Project: Sada Shakti in Bengaluru, India to employ and empower marginalised waste workers to ethically reclaim over 1000 kgs of nature-bound low-value plastic waste per year. Check out more on why we went Plastic Neutral, how we are doing it, and its impact on our world.

How Does This Positively Impact Communities on the Front of Environmental Protection?

As you may know, millions of waste workers are engaged in informal recycling across cities in the developing world - from Nairobi and Rio de Janeiro to Mumbai and Jakarta, they play a crucial role in dealing with the consequences of our consumption. However, their environmental work remains overlooked and these marginalised communities barely earn livable wages, weather harsh working conditions, and are often stuck in a cycle of abject poverty. 

Every box of dog food or treats you purchase is helping rePurpose Global add crucial income streams for informal waste workers and their families. Through our Plastic Neutral contributions, rePurpose Global ensures ethical wages to waste workers and incentivizes the collection of hard-to-recycle low-value plastic waste items (e.g. chip wrappers) for which they barely received adequate compensation from the recycling market. Our collaboration with rePurpose Global ensures waste workers are fairly compensated for diverting plastic waste that would have otherwise ended up in nature.

Why Is My Furbaby Still Using a Soft-plastic Liner?

We’ve been looking at a more eco-friendly material for a long time to replace the soft plastic liner used in our packaging. We have, and still are, testing all sorts of plastic alternatives but the reality is that pet food is a moist/ oily product, so any compostable/alternative materials will break down with the food inside and won’t have sufficient oxygen barrier to keep the food fresh. The truth is, plastic is a magical material with an impressively low environmental footprint. The problem with plastics doesn’t lie in the material itself, but in the way we manage its lifecycle. When disposed of, recycled or recovered responsibly, the material proves to be much lighter on the environment than any other mainstream alternatives.

The best solution available with today’s technology is to reduce plastic as much as possible; we have done this by using a much thinner plastic liner (up 60% less plastic than traditional pet food packaging) and a recyclable cardboard outer packaging to provide the structure and safety for the food in transit. The clear plastic we use in our packaging is easier to recycle, whereas our conscious commitment to using separate cardboard and + plastic layers (as opposed to a single multi-layered material) ensures that each material can be recycled separately. Our cardboard packaging is fully compostable and will break down in your compost bin - just cut it up into little pieces and it will break down and provide nutrients to the soil. 

Sustainability, of course, is all about maximising the life of the resources we use, so the other clever thing we do with our packaging is that we use the same packaging from the production line to the pantry, with no secondary bags, wraps, or tapes used in getting it to you. Moreover, our packaging comes with an integrated cardboard scoop (from an otherwise wasted part of the packaging), thus eliminating the need for plastic scoops or storage containers (It’s designed to be used daily in the house until empty).

 That being said, we believe that there is always room for improvement. We are working with rePurpose Global to reduce our plastic packaging wherever possible and are currently exploring the possibility of incorporating more recycled content. Giving plastic waste a second life through recycled content will help bolster demand for it, close the loop, and contribute to achieving a circular economy model where no waste ends up in our nature.

Where Does the Money Go? How Do I Know That This Impact Is Real and Happening?

A percentage of every Feed my Furbaby purchase is contributed to our Plastic Neutrality partner, rePurpose Global which co-designs and finances plastic waste recovery projects worldwide. In our case, we have chosen to support rePurpose Impact Project: Sada Shakti in Bengaluru, India to fund the collection of 810 kgs of low-value PP plastic waste, thereby preventing them from ending up in landfills every year.

To ensure that your impact is happening, rePurpose Global employs strict verification measures - they conduct unannounced spot-checks, provide detailed reports of their progress, and ensure that their Plastic Credit Protocol is followed to the tee. The Protocol is a set of operational guidelines that help rePurpose Impact Projects carry out their operations ethically and efficiently and ultimately maximise their impact on the ground. 

My Furbaby Purchase Is Happening in New Zealand. Why Are Your Plastic Neutral Contributions Going to India?

Our waste may be generated and picked up here in Aotearoa, but a majority of it ends up being shipped out of sight and out of mind to be dealt with in the developing world. On the receiving end, most developing countries lack the necessary resources and infrastructure to handle more waste than their own, which makes them weak links in a truly global waste ecosystem. 90% of plastic pollution in the oceans today stems from just 10 rivers, 8 of which are located in Asia. 

Although these countries might be thousands of miles away, lack of support there results in waste ending up back on our plates here in New Zealand. This is how we know that our plastic problem is not country-specific, it’s global. And it’s growing exponentially, with developing countries bearing the brunt of it all. To solve this problem on a global scale, we need to empower plastic waste innovators and solution providers in countries that have been forced to bite off more than they can chew. Because if we can’t solve their waste crisis today, the spread will be too much to contain tomorrow.

What’s Next for My Furbaby?

It’s not perfect yet, but we think that we’re already well ahead of what anyone else in pet food is trying to do for the planet as a small kiwi company. It’s a bit cliché to say sustainability is a journey but we’re well underway and always looking for ways to blaze that particular trail!

We are working hard to establish packaging reduction goals to reduce our plastic footprint. We are also working on evaluating our entire supply chain to find and take action on the specific pain points that need immediate attention. 

We want to lighten our impact on the planet as much as possible while ensuring pet parents can love their pets back with really great NZ-made food.

Keen to get started? Check out our Chicken Dog Box sample bags or read our blog for more helpful information.